Design

Chicago's "Signfeud" Grows

Thanks to The Daily Show's Jon Stewart, we now have a name for the Trump v. Emanuel v. Kamin faceoff.

If you haven't been following the play-by-play, here's the gist. Donald Trump is installing 20-foot-tall letters that spell out his name on the side of his Chicago tower, designed by Adrian Smith, FAIA. Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin doesn't like them, and has said so severaltimes. Last week, Trump described Kamin on Twitter as a "third rate architecture critic" and "dopey," and also said that he thought he got fired. (Kamin was not fired, won a Pulitzer, and was a Harvard Nieman fellow.) Trump repeated these sentiments on a Today show broadcast Friday, which the show then corrected on another broadcast Monday.

On Tuesday's The Daily Show, host Jon Stewart dubbed the controversy "Signfeud." The segment included a clip from a CBS This Morning broadcast, in which Kamin says "a wart is putting it politely, I think."

Stewart responds, "Well, I'm glad you are putting it politely, because now—Chicago architecture critic just doing your job—you have entered the Trumpagon."

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About the Author

Sara Johnson is the assistant editor of design at ARCHITECT. Previously, she was a fellow at CityLab. Her work has also appeared in San Francisco, San Francisco Brides, California Brides, Patchwork Nation, and The Christian Science Monitor. Follow her on Twitter at @SaraA_Johnson.